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SomaliaThe Real Causes of Famine

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, July 21, 2011

For the last twenty years, Somalia has been entangled in a “civil war” amidst the destruction of both its rural and urban economies. The country is now facing widespread famine. According to reports, tens of thousands of people have died from malnutrition in the last few months. The lives of several million people are threatened. The mainstream media casually attributes the famine to a severe drought without examining the broader causes. An atmosphere of “lawlessness, gang warfare and anarchy” is also upheld as one of the major causes behind the famine.

But who is behind the lawlessness and armed gangs?

Somalia is categorized as a “failed state”, a country without a government.

But how did it become a “failed state”? There is ample evidence of foreign intervention as well as covert support of armed militia groups. Triggering “failed states” is an integral part of US foreign policy. It is part of a military-intelligence agenda.

According to the UN, a situation of famine prevails in southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle, areas in part controlled by Al Shahab, a jihadist militia group affiliated to Al Qaeda.

Both the UN and the Obama administration had accused Al Shahab of imposing “a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009”. What the reports do not mention, however, is that Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (HSM) (“Movement of Striving Youth”) is funded by Saudi Arabia and supported covertly by Western intelligence agencies.

The backing of Islamic militia by Western intelligence agencies is part of a broader historical pattern of covert support to Al Qaeda affiliated and jihadist organizations in a number of countries, including, more recently, Libya and Syria.

The broader question is: What outside forces triggered the destruction of the Somali State in the early 1990s?

Somalia remained self-sufficient in food until the late 1970s despite recurrent droughts. As of the early 1980s, its national economy was destabilized and food agriculture was destroyed.

The process of economic dislocation preceded the onset of the civil war in 1991. Economic and social chaos resulting from IMF “economic medicine” had set the stage for the launching of a US sponsored “civil war”.

An entire country with a rich history of commerce and economic development, was transformed into a territory.

In a bitter irony, this open territory encompasses significant oil wealth. Four US oil giants had already positioned themselves prior to the onset of the Somali civil war in 1991:

Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside.

According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia’s pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. …

Officially, the Administration and the State Department insist that the U.S. military mission in Somalia is strictly humanitarian. Oil industry spokesmen dismissed as “absurd” and “nonsense” allegations by aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts and several prominent Somalis that President Bush [Senior], a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part, by the U.S. corporate oil stake.

But corporate and scientific documents disclosed that the American companies are well positioned to pursue Somalia’s most promising potential oil reserves the moment the nation is pacified. And the State Department and U.S. military officials acknowledge that one of those oil companies has done more than simply sit back and hope for peace.

Conoco Inc., the only major multinational corporation to maintain a functioning office in Mogadishu throughout the past two years of nationwide anarchy, has been directly involved in the U.S. government’s role in the U.N.-sponsored humanitarian military effort.( The Oil Factor in Somalia : Four American petroleum giants had agreements with the African nation before its civil war began. They could reap big rewards if peace is restored. – Los Angeles Times 1993)

Somalia had been a colony of Italy and Britain. In 1969, a post-colonial government was formed under president Mohamed Siad Barre; major social programs in health and education were implemented, rural and urban infrastructure was developed in the course of the 1970s, significant social progress including a mass literacy program was achieved.

The early 1980s marks a major turning point.

The IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) was imposed on sub-Saharan Africa. The recurrent famines of the 1980s and 1990s are in large part the consequence of IMF-World Bank “economic medicine”.

In Somalia, ten years of IMF economic medicine laid the foundations for the country’s transition towards economic dislocation and social chaos.

By the late 1980s, following recurrent “austerity measures” imposed by the Washington consensus, wages in the public sector had collapsed to three dollars a month.

The following article first published in 1994 in Le Monde diplomatique and Third World Resurgence centers on the historical causes of famine in Somalia.

This article was subsequently included as a Chapter in my book The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, first edition 1997, second edition, Global Research. Montreal, 2003.

Somalia: the Real Causes of Famine

by Michel Chossudovsky

First published in 1994, Third World Resurgence and Le Monde diplomatique

The IMF Intervention in the Early 1980s

Somalia was a pastoral economy based on “exchange” between nomadic herdsmen and small agriculturalists. Nomadic pastoralists accounted for 50 percent of the population. In the 1970s, resettlement programs led to the development of a sizeable sector of commercial pastoralism. Livestock contributed to 80 percent of export earnings until 1983. Despite recurrent droughts, Somalia remained virtually self-sufficient in food until the 1970s.

The IMF-World Bank intervention in the early 1980s contributed to exacerbating the crisis of Somali agriculture. The economic reforms undermined the fragile exchange relationship between the “nomadic economy” and the “sedentary economy” – i.e. between pastoralists and small farmers characterized by money transactions as well as traditional barter. A very tight austerity program was imposed on the government largely to release the funds required to service Somalia’s debt with the Paris Club. In fact, a large share of the external debt was held by the Washington-based financial institutions.’ According to an ILO mission report:

[T]he Fund alone among Somalia’s major recipients of debt service payments, refuses to reschedule. (…) De facto it is helping to finance an adjustment program, one of whose major goals is to repay the IMF itself.

Towards the Destruction of Food Agriculture

The structural adjustment program reinforced Somalia’s dependency on imported grain. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, food aid increased fifteen-fold, at the rate of 31 percent per annum.’ Combined with increased commercial imports, this influx of cheap surplus wheat and rice sold in the domestic market led to the displacement of local producers, as well as to a major shift in food consumption patterns to the detriment of traditional crops (maize and sorghum). The devaluation of the Somali shilling, imposed by the IMF in June 1981, was followed by periodic devaluations, leading to hikes in the prices of fuel, fertilizer and farm inputs. The impact on agricultural producers was immediate particularly in rain-fed agriculture, as well as in the areas of irrigated farming. Urban purchasing power declined dramatically, government extension programs were curtailed, infrastructure collapsed, the deregulation of the grain market and the influx of “food aid” led to the impoverishment of farming communities.’

Also, during this period, much of the best agricultural land was appropriated by bureaucrats, army officers and merchants with connections to the government.’ Rather than promoting food production for the domestic market, the donors were encouraging the development of so-called “high value-added” fruits, vegetables, oilseeds and cotton for export on the best irrigated farmland.

Collapse of the Livestock Economy

As of the early 1980s, prices for imported livestock drugs increased as a result of the depreciation of the currency. The World Bank encouraged the exaction of user fees for veterinarian services to the nomadic herdsmen, including the vaccination of animals. A private market for veterinary drugs was promoted. The functions performed by the Ministry of Livestock were phased out, with the Veterinary Laboratory Services of the ministry to be fully financed on a cost-recovery basis. According to the World Bank:
Veterinarian services are essential for livestock development in all areas, and they can be provided mainly by the private sector. (… Since few private veterinarians will choose to practice in the remote pastoral areas, improved livestock care will also depend on “para vets” paid from drug sales.’

The privatization of animal health was combined with the absence of emergency animal feed during periods of drought, the commercialization of water and the neglect of water and rangeland conservation. The results were predictable: the herds were decimated and so were the pastoralists, who represent 50 percent of the country’s population. The “hidden objective” of this program was to eliminate the nomadic herdsmen involved in the traditional exchange economy. According to the World Bank, “adjustments” in the size of the herds are, in any event, beneficial because nomadic pastoralists in sub-Saharan Africa are narrowly viewed as a cause of environmental degradation.”

The collapse in veterinarian services also indirectly served the interests of the rich countries: in 1984, Somalian cattle exports to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries plummeted as Saudi beef imports were redirected to suppliers from Australia and the European Community. The ban on Somali livestock imposed by Saudi Arabia was not, however, removed once the rinderpest disease epidemic had been eliminated.

Destroying the State

The restructuring of government expenditure under the supervision of the Bretton Woods institutions also played a crucial role in destroying food agriculture. Agricultural infrastructure collapsed and recurrent expenditure in agriculture declined by about 85 percent in relation to the mid-1970s.” The Somali government was prevented by the IMF from mobilizing domestic resources. Tight targets for the budget deficit were set. Moreover, the donors increasingly provided “aid”, not in the form of imports of capital and equipment, but in the form of “food aid”. The latter would in turn be sold by the government on the local market and the proceeds of these sales (i.e. the so-called “counterpart funds”) would be used to cover the domestic costs of development projects. As of the early 1980s, “the sale of food aid” became the principal source of revenue for the state, thereby enabling donors to take control of the entire budgetary process.”

The economic reforms were marked by the disintegration of health and educational programmes.’3 By 1989, expenditure on health had declined by 78 percent in relation to its 1975 level. According to World Bank figures, the level of recurrent expenditure on education in 1989 was about US$ 4 Per annum per primary school student down from about $ 82 in 1982. From 1981 to 1989, school enrolment declined by 41 percent (despite a sizeable increase in the population of school age), textbooks and school materials disappeared from the class-rooms, school buildings deteriorated and nearly a quarter of the primary schools closed down. Teachers’ salaries declined to abysmally low levels.

The IMF-World Bank program has led the Somali economy into a vicious circle: the decimation of the herds pushed the nomadic pastoralists into starvation which in turn backlashes on grain producers who sold or bartered their grain for cattle. The entire social fabric of the pastoralist economy was undone. The collapse in foreign exchange earnings from declining cattle exports and remittances (from Somali workers in the Gulf countries) backlashed on the balance of payments and the state’s public finances leading to the breakdown of the government’s economic and social programs.

Small farmers were displaced as a result of the dumping of subsidized US grain on the domestic market combined with the hike in the price of farm inputs. The impoverishment of the urban population also led to a contraction of food consumption. In turn, state support in the irrigated areas was frozen and production in the state farms declined. The latter were slated to be closed down or privatized under World Bank supervision.

According to World Bank estimates, real public-sector wages in 1989 had declined by 90 percent in relation to the mid-1970s. Average wages in the public sector had fallen to US$ 3 a month, leading to the inevitable disintegration of the civil administration.” A program to rehabilitate civil service wages was proposed by the World Bank (in the context of a reform of the civil service), but this objective was to be achieved within the same budgetary envelope by dismissing some 40 percent of public-sector employees and eliminating salary supplements.” Under this plan, the civil service would have been reduced to a mere 25,000 employees by 1995 (in a country of six million people). Several donors indicated keen interest in funding the cost associated with the retrenchment of civil servants.”

In the face of impending disaster, no attempt was made by the international donor community to rehabilitate the country’s economic and social infrastructure, to restore levels of purchasing power and to rebuild the civil service: the macro-economic adjustment measures proposed by the creditors in the year prior to the collapse of the government of General Siyad Barre in January 1991 (at the height of the civil war) called for a further tightening over public spending, the restructuring of the Central Bank, the liberalization of credit (which virtually thwarted the private sector) and the liquidation and divestiture of most of the state enterprises.

In 1989, debt-servicing obligations represented 194.6 percent of export earnings. The IMF’s loan was cancelled because of Somalia’s outstanding arrears. The World Bank had approved a structural adjustment loan for US$ 70 million in June 1989 which was frozen a few months later due to Somalia’s poor macro-economic performance. ‘7 Arrears with creditors had to be settled before the granting of new loans and the negotiation of debt rescheduling. Somalia was tangled in the straightjacket of debt servicing and structural adjustment.

Famine Formation in sub-Saharan Africa: The Lessons of Somalia

Somalia’s experience shows how a country can be devastated by the simultaneous application of food “aid” and macro-economic policy. There are many Somalias in the developing world and the economic reform package implemented in Somalia is similar to that applied in more than 100 developing countries. But there is another significant dimension: Somalia is a pastoralist economy, and throughout Africa both nomadic and commercial livestock are being destroyed by the IMF-World Bank program in much the same way as in Somalia. In this context, subsidized beef and dairy products imported (duty free) from the European Union have led to the demise of Africa’s pastoral economy. European beef imports to West Africa have increased seven-fold since 1984: “the low quality EC beef sells at half the price of locally produced meat. Sahelian farmers are finding that no-one is prepared to buy their herds”.”

The experience of Somalia shows that famine in the late 20th century is not a consequence of a shortage of food. On the contrary, famines are spurred on as a result of a global oversupply of grain staples. Since the 1980s, grain markets have been deregulated under the supervision of the World Bank and US grain surpluses are used systematically as in the case of Somalia to destroy the peasantry and destabilize national food agriculture. The latter becomes, under these circumstances, far more vulnerable to the vagaries of drought and environmental degradation.

Throughout the continent, the pattern of “sectoral adjustment” in agriculture under the custody of the Bretton Woods institutions has been unequivocally towards the destruction of food security. Dependency vis-à-vis the world market has been reinforced, “food aid” to sub-Saharan Africa increased by more than seven times since 1974 and commercial grain imports more than doubled. Grain imports for sub-Saharan Africa expanded from 3.72 million tons in 1974 to 8.47 million tons in 1993. Food aid increased from 910,000 tons in 1974 to 6.64 million tons in l993.

“Food aid”, however, was no longer earmarked for the drought-stricken countries of the Sahelian belt; it was also channeled into countries which were, until recently, more or less self-sufficient in food. Zimbabwe (once considered the bread basket of Southern Africa) was severely affected by the famine and drought which swept Southern Africa in 1992. The country experienced a drop of 90 percent in its maize crop, located largely in less productive lands.” Yet, ironically, at the height of the drought, tobacco for export (supported by modem irrigation, credit, research, etc.) registered a bumper harvest. While “the famine forces the population to eat termites”, much of the export earnings from Zimbabwe’s tobacco harvest were used to service the external debt.

Under the structural adjustment program, farmers have increasingly abandoned traditional food crops; in Malawi, which was once a net food exporter, maize production declined by 40 percent in 1992 while tobacco output doubled between 1986 and 1993. One hundred and fifty thousand hectares of the best land was allocated to tobacco .2′ Throughout the 1980s, severe austerity measures were imposed on African governments and expenditures on rural development drastically curtailed, leading to the collapse of agricultural infrastructure. Under the World Bank program, water was to become a commodity to be sold on a cost-recovery basis to impoverished farmers. Due to lack of funds, the state was obliged to withdraw from the management and conservation of water resources. Water points and boreholes dried up due to lack of maintenance, or were privatized by local merchants and rich farmers. In the semi-arid regions, this commercialization of water and irrigation leads to the collapse of food security and famine.

Concluding Remarks

While “external” climatic variables play a role in triggering off a famine and heightening the social impact of drought, famines in the age of globalization are man-made. They are not the consequence of a scarcity of food but of a structure of global oversupply which undermines food security and destroys national food agriculture. Tightly regulated and controlled by international agri-business, this oversupply is ultimately conducive to the stagnation of both production and consumption of essential food staples and the impoverishment of farmers throughout the world. Moreover, in the era of globalization, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program bears a direct relationship to the process of famine formation because it systematically undermines all categories of economic activity, whether urban or rural, which do not directly serve the interests of the global market system.

BILDERBERG 2011 DISCUSSION LEAKED VIA MOLES INSIDE

By Daniel Estulin

Understanding the Bilderbergers and their way of thinking and what they are planning!

Also, some hard facts…..and very grim reading! Be warned! See Conclusion. Here’s a few extracts

From Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase and beyond, the system is imploding: banks, financial markets, bond markets, housing markets. And now, we can add the United States to the list of bankrupt nations. US dollar has lost 12% of its value in one year. And China, for the first time, has become a net seller of US treasury bonds. What it means is that the bond bubble is about to explode and when it does, take a front row seat and enjoy the fireworks. This is once in a lifetime opportunity. China´s warning was reiterated at the Bilderberg conference by a first time Chinese delegate, that USG´s planned attack on Pakistan will be interpreted as an act of aggression against Beijing. The Bilderberg Group is not the end, but the means, to a future One World Company Limited. The ultimate goal of this nightmare future is to transform Earth into a prison planet by bringing about a single globalised marketplace, controlled by One World Company, financially regulated by a World Bank, and populated by a dumbed down population whose life´s needs will be stripped down to materialism and survival “ work, buy, sex, sleep“ all connected to a global computer that monitors our every move. And it is becoming easier because the development of telecommunications technology together with profound advances in present-day knowledge and new methods of behavior engineering to manipulate individual conduct are converting what, in other epochs of history, were only evil intentions, into a disturbing new reality. Each new measure viewed on its own may seem an aberration, but a whole host of changes, as part of an ongoing continuum, constitutes a shift towards total enslavement.

The background In the world of international finance, there are those who steer the events and those who react to the events. While the latter are better known, greater in numbers, and seemingly more powerful, the true power rests with the former. At the centre of the global financial system are the financial oligarchy today represented by the Bilderberg group. Bilderberg organization is dynamic, in that it changes with the times, absorbs and creates new parts while excreting the remains of the decaying parts. Members come and go, but the system itself has not changed. It is a self-perpetuating system, a virtual spider web of interlocked financial, political, economic and industry interests with the venetian ultramontane fondi model at the centre. Now, Bilderberg isn´t a secret society. It is not an evil, all-seeing eye or a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. There is no conspiracy even though a lot of people with their infantile fantasies see it as such. No group of people, and I dont care how powerful they are, sit around the table in dark room, holding hands, staring at a crystal ball, planning the world´s future. Bilderberg is not a Cartesian fantasy world, in which the isolated intentions of some individuals, instead of the dynamics of social processes, shape the course of history as the movement of evolving ideas and themes over successive generations. It is clinically significant, that today´s more popular varieties of wild-eyed conspiracy theories, reflect the peculiarly pathological style in infantile fantasy associated with the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter cults. The characteristic form of mental action these cults express, is the magical power of the will, acting outside real physical space-time dimension. It´s a meeting of people who represent a certain ideology. Bilderberg is a medium of bringing together financial institutions which are the world´s most powerful and most predatory financial interests. And at this time, it is that combination which is the worst enemy of humanity. Not OWG or NWO as too many people mistakenly believe. Rather, the ideology is of a ONE WORLD COMPANY LIMITED. Back in 1968, at a Bilderberg meeting in Canada, George Ball, the then Under-secretary for Economic Affairs with JFK and Johnson said: Where does one find a legitimate base for the power of corporate management to make decisions that can profoundly affect the economic life of nations to whose governments they have only limited responsibility? The idea behind each and every Bilderberg meeting is to create what they themselves call THE ARISTOCRACY OF PURPOSE between European and North American elites on the best way to manage the planet. In other words, the creation of a global network of giant cartels, more powerful than any nation on Earth, destined to control the necessities of life of the rest of humanity.

Iraq

One of the key discussion points regarding Iraq centered on the future of the US mission in the country given that the eight-year occupation is coming to an end. Under the heading â€œWhat rights do we have in Iraq? Bilderberg delegates discussed whether the USG is entitled to some kind of squatters rights. For now, this issue is off the charts, but in the foreseeable future the story will undoubtedly get lots of mainstream attention. What concerns everyone involved is the last page, the ending to the Iraqi occupation. If the US military leaves Iraq, something that most Bilderberg delegates do not see plausible, under what conditions and agreements will this be made possible? As one American delegate reminded his colleagues, as of October 1, 2011, full responsibility for the US presence in Iraq would officially be transferred from the military to the Department of State. Translation: we might well be sold a false bill of good by the mainstream press. USG has no intentions of ever leaving Iraq, even if ownership changes hands. What one US delegate stated can sum up US position on Iraq: when you think of Iraq, think big. Indeed, to understand US position in the country, one only needs to remember that the US mission in Baghdad is the worlds largest embassy, built for just under $1 billion and comparable in size to the Vatican and visible from space. One European delegate asked point blank if after eight years of war, anyone can truly say that it was worth the effort. At a staggering cost of trillions of US dollars, over five thousand US lives and over a million innocent Iraqis killed few can admit to the spectacular failure of the mission. With the supposed upcoming transfer of power from the Department of Defense to the Department of State, one is left to wonder exactly what will the US mission be in Iraq beginning in 2012. As another European Bilderberg retorted: â€œIt is anyones guess. The US delegates pointed to the fact that there is a stable government in the country as a result of a democratically held elections. He was reminded that the initial reason for the invasion had to do with finding and eliminating weapons of mass destruction. The concern for their freedom was an afterthought, said one European. There was also talk of major financial investment in Iraq to jumpstart their weak economy. However, most attendees agreed that the investment was completely self-serving, centered on the US embassy and justifying its existence and costs.

Middle East

Let´s start with the conclusion: As cash for counter-revolution is dolled out by the billions, the future of the great 2011 Arab revolt looks grimmer and grimmer. Bilderberg fully backs draconian repression and perpetual war all across the Persian Gulf and is willingly using its staunch ally, Saudi Arabia to do it bidding. This war will include every nation in the Middle East except for Israel. Saudi Arabia is a strategic partner, not only because it is a repressive Monarchy and a dictatorship, thus unaccountable to an electorate, but also because of their oil as strategic energy reserve. Instability across the entire Middle East allows Bilderberg an excuse to push oil prices to a $150-180 per barrel. This would put tremendous political pressure on Germany and the European Union on the one hand and on China and its economic and political aspirations on the other. Keep in mind that no matter how you role the dice, Bilderberg wins. Back in the summer 2008, oil shot up to $147 a barrel, something I predicted back in May 2005, after the Bilderberg conference in Rottach-Egern where it was decided to manipulate prices to that level by the summer 2008. At the time, JP Morgan was advising the Chinese government that China buy all the physical crude oil because it is going to $200 a barrel. What few people know, is that almost all of the price of oil is pure speculation, manipulated by the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index. Thus, Wall Street controls the oil price irrespective of supply and demand. Rest assured, that this is all part of a long range objective to control not only the oil price but the world financial markets. If you take a closer look, Saudi Arabia has their fingers in every Middle Eastern pie. Take Egypt. The House of Saud has just given Supreme Military Council leader Field Marshall Tantawi US$4 billion in cash. In Yemen, the Saudis are buying Yemeni tribes with money, in the name of stability in the region. In Bahrain, they are overtly supporting the National Human Rights Organization whose president was appointed by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa in 2010. Then, last week, at the White House, US President Barack Obama received Bahrains Crown Prince Salman al-Khalifa. For strategic purposes, oil-rich Bahrain is a key US ally in the Gulf region, and hosts the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet. Finally, theres the Muslim Brotherhood to be understood in the context of the carefully orchestrated US/Saudi counter-revolution. From Syria to Egypt, Brotherhood is working very close with Egypts Military Council as a reqard for good behavior.

CHINA

Of great concern to Bilderberg is China’s entrance into African politics at the supra-national level as well as their protagonism in many of the African continents disparate corners. For years, China scoured the continent for natural resources virtually unchallenged. Now, the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) is building a gigantic African Unions headquarters complex in Addis Ababa. If Brussels is the capital of Europe, than Addis Ababa is the newly crowned capital of Africa. Bilderberg has acknowledged that their corporations have been unable to compete with Chinese State owned companies because the price is right¦ free. What´s more, as Bilderberg readily admitted, China distinctly lacks the colonialist label that still taints European-African relations, which gives it unfare advantage in the area. Another area of concern to Bilderberg is Chinese deft northern African diplomacy. Under the radar, China is outmaneuvering the United States and its western allies. For example, Libyas foreign minister Abdelati Obeidi visit to Beijing allows China a major opportunity to counter American influence in the international arena, and enhance its image as a friend of the Muslim world. Furthermore, China has not missed the opportunity to enhance relations with new governments in Egypt and Tunisia after their leaders fell during the recent uprisings. According to the latest IMF forecast, Chinas economy will be the world´s largest in real terms in 2016” just five years from now. In real terms, meaning using purchasing power parities (PPP). That compares what people earn and spend in real terms in their domestic economies. Against the backdrop of Middle east conflict, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and destruction of the world economy greater doubts were raised over both the U.S. dollar and the giant Treasury market, which have been propped up for decades by their privileged status as the liabilities of the worlds hegemonic power. According to Bilderberg, whoever is elected U.S. president next year will be the last to preside over the worlds largest economy. Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the size of the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take Americas share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. Chinas would reach 18%, and rising. For comparison, just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of Chinas. As Bilderberg recognizes, this is more than a financial perspective. It is the end of the Age of Americas economic hegemony. America overtook Great Britain as the worlds leading economic power in the 1890s and never looked back. There is a silver lining in this for the United States. To counterbalance Chinas economic encroachment, Asian nations are increasingly turning to the United States for support. As one Bilderberger admitted, the rise of China, and the relative decline of America, the so-called paradigm shift, or revolutionary changes in geopolitics, is the biggest story of our time.

IRELAND

The discussion on Ireland was led off with sobering statistics which none of the attendees wanted to hear. Just like Greece, Ireland is an economic nightmare, close to becoming yet another European economic protectorate. Even though the official statistics of unemployment is up to 15%, Bilderberg internal numbers are much closer to 21%. Not to be outdone by the spectacularly bad news, the interest payments are half of all the income tax raised in the country and the debt is growing. What´s more, the total debt is 100% of Gross Domestic Product. Ireland´s unpaid bank debt, around 125 billion, as well as Irish State fiscal debt, courtesy of EU-IMF partnership has weighed down the Irish economy and Irish taxpayers with a burden so great that it is beyond Irelands capacity to carry it. What is inevitable, admitted Bilderberg attendees, is just like Greece, Ireland will need a second bailout from the EU-IMF. Others were even more blunt. The European Union is in a survival crisis, said one European Bilderberger. What seems to worry Bilderberg is the lack of fortitude and political will across the European Union. As one Bilderberg financial analyst stated, the markets are stuck between the rock and the hard place. The markets can cope with good news and they can cope with bad news, but what the financial markets cant stand, is indecision. And thats all we have across the board. Nobody has any ideas how to get out of this. But, as another Bilderberg bluntly reminded the attendees, it is not one but three crisis we have to deal with: a debt crisis, a political-economy crisis, and a political crisis. And as Bilderberg knows, it is impossible to deal with all three at the same time. Bilderberg has admitted that the Irish banks are in over their head, having tremendous difficulties raising funds, while at the same time, the banks are bleeding money, as people have lost faith in the system. With the Northern Rock experience in Britain still fresh in everyones mind, the Irish are not taking any chances. For now, the mainstream press has kept this information under wraps, but as Bilderberg admitted, it is just a matter of time before it explodes in our faces. One Irish Bilderberger admitted that the Irish banks could very well run out of money before the Irish government does. However, what worries Bilderberg is the reaction of the Irish citizens. As one Bilderberg asked, will Ireland want to borrow money to pay back the bondholders and European banks who gambled on the Irish boom? To solve the mounting crisis, European government is proposing a massive power grab as part of a long-range plan to save the Union. If the plan is approved, the EU government will set the rules in the future and police itself and any nation, which breaches the rules or disagrees with the draconian measures implemented by the EU, will have their voting rights withdrawn. As one European Bilderberg openly admitted, What we are heading towards a form of real economic government.

GREECE

Greece is dead. The message coming out of the Bilderberg meeting is unmistakable. Greeces troubles have not only exposed the structural flaws of the European Monetary Union, but have also exposed the structural problems in the global economy. Government officials around the world have responded to the debt problem by adding more debt. Unfortunately, piling debt on debt cannot solve the problem. This is what a Ponzi scheme, Las Vegas-like secret casino looks like. To keep the pyramid-like structure from acute economic collapse, more and more money is doled out by those wishing to keep the speculation going. The crisis response has only exacerbated a dynamic that created the crisis to begin with: Easy credit means debt. Historically, financial crises typically lead to sovereign debt crisis. And sovereign debt crisis typically led to currency crisis and extremely difficult economic times ahead. The sovereign debt crisis is still unfolding. Last year, Europe, trying desperation to solve the crisis of weak countries within the Euro zone, devalued the Euro and inflated away the debt in order to stop the downward spiraling. The problem is three fold. First of all, member states cannot devalue its currency to make its exports more competitive. Second of all, it cannot undertake an expansive monetary policy. Finally, it cannot mount an appropriately expansive fiscal policy because of the restrictions of the EUs growth and stability pact. Thus, as European member states do not control their monetary policies, debt devaluation becomes the only option. EU is literally backed into a corner. As Bilderberg admits behind closed doors, Greece can never pay back what it owes the markets. Never. And they are not the only ones. Former Dutch Finance Minister Willem Vermeend wrote in De Telegraaf that Greece should leave the euro, given that it will never be able to pay back its debt. And that´s something that Bilderberg elite know and understand very well. Real unemployment figures are around 19%. According to IMF Bilderberg attendee, 2012 projected unemployment figures for Greece will top 25%. Bilderberg can only pray this information never makes it onto the front pages of leading mainstream periodicals. At the 2011 meeting, Bilderberg was looking at ways to restructure Greeces debt, not for the benefit of Greece, but rather for the benefit of the financial elite who stand to lose their shirt if Greece fails. On the other hand, a default would destabilise markets and lead eventually to rating downgrades of other weak euro zone states such as Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal. ECB officials have repeatedly cited the risk of market turmoil in explaining their opposition to a Greek debt restructuring. One face-saving option being considered is a debt exchange. Holders of Greek bonds would exchange them for longer-dated bonds, giving Greece a few more years to pay back the 340 billion euro debt. However, for this option to work, private investors must be convinced to share the burden of rescuing Greece. If the option of private investors doesnÂ´t work out, France was being considered as the backer of the debt exchange, according to sources at the Bilderberg conference. At the same time, the European Union and IMF are preparing to announce a second bailout of Greece, thus acknowledging that the first 110 billion euro rescue which was launched in May 2010 has been a spectacular failure as Athens misses its fiscal reform targets by a mile. But there is another problem with a voluntary debt exchange. How do you persuade investors who were burnt the first time to take part in it, again? In the end, if Bilderberg has their way, taxpayers will be burdened with a large part of the bailout of bad speculations and government debts. A second bailout will include unprecedented and draconian external supervision of Greeces economy, both public and private spending. This worries Bilderberg, especially in light of 2010 massive national protests across the country. The scenario of Greeces exit from the Euro is now officially on the table, as are ways to do this. As in Iceland, the Greek austerity measures are to be put to a national referendum â€“ with polls reporting that some 85 percent of Greeks reject the bank-bailout-austerity plan. Greeces labor movement always has [missing portion] In Greece, more than 85% of Greek citizens are against the proposed reforms.

PAKISTAN

China is Pakistans new best friend. This is a major geopolitical shift. It comes on the heels of Obama administration approval of aggressive tactics against Pakistan, amongst them, first use of nuclear weapons by NATO to prevent their potential use by terrorists or a rogue state. According to the London Sunday Express: US troops will be deployed in Pakistan if the nations nuclear installations come under threat from terrorists out to avenge the killing of Osama Bin Laden¦ Barack Obama would order troops to parachute in to protect key nuclear missile sites. These include the air forces central Sargodha HQ, home base for nuclear-capable F-16 combat aircraft and at least 80 ballistic missiles. Enter China. China´s warning was reiterated at the Bilderberg conference by a first time Chinese delegate, that USG´s planned attack on Pakistan will be interpreted as an act of aggression against Beijing. The stakes are perhaps as high as they have ever been for the post-Cold War United States as Bilderberg dealt with quagmire in Pakistan. As one European delegate stated, US is the world´s most powerful nation, but it is not more powerful than the world. Everyone agreed on the grave danger of general war growing out of the US-Pakistan confrontation. From geopolitical point of view, the USG is concerned with China´s increased protagonism in the region. China has built a port for Pakistan at Gwadar, which is close to the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz. US delegates expressed concern that the port might become a Chinese naval base on the Arabian Sea. This obviously affects India, USÂ´s new best friend in the region. We have a perfect storm in the making. A nuclear US supporting a 1.2 billion strong nuclear Indian against IndiaÂ´s archenemy, nuclear Pakistan and their new best friend, a 1.4 billion strong nuclear China. Bilderberg´s attempt to create conditions for a Sino-Indian confrontation have Russia as one of the key players. With both Russia and China working diligently to bring peace to Libya, the purpose, as Bilderberg recognises is to reduce the influence of western powers, and ensure oil supplies for China from Libya. It still remains to be seen just how a consensus amongst Bilderberg attendees will be reached on the issue, but the US scenario is easily discernible. To effectively counter a Sino-Pakistani duopoly, Washington will seek a way to maneuver itself out of the confrontation by using India to do its bidding. By the time India and China realize that they have been played and used into mutual destruction by the United States, it will be too late for either to back down without losing face. Once again, the key to understanding India-China confrontation is Russia and its role in the future One World Government-One World Company Limited. Until Russia is subjugated, Bilderberg and their bidders cant realistically hope for full control. By eliminating both Asian superpowers, Russia will be left alone, surrounded by US missile bases and isolated from Europe by NATO, which now includes former Soviet republics, mostly antagonistic towards Russia. What´s more, as Bilderbergers agreed, a cultural degradation has left a large percentage of Russian youth admiring the US for its alleged freedomâ€ as a stark counterpoint to the excesses of Russian â€œauthoritarianâ€ state, which they have been sold by the mainstream western press to be a mere continuation of the old Soviet system. With Russia eliminated, the US will focus its military on South America. Chavez will be overthrown, followed by his allies such as Ecuador and Bolivia. However, Pakistan is one part of the multi pronged Asian strategies set in motion by the US Government and Bilderberg. In 2002, one of the key issues discussed at the Chantilly Bilderberg conference that year centred on Bilderberg led plan for a 10-year war to eliminate terrorism, involving both military and diplomatic initiatives. It eventually became known as Operation Noble Eagle. In fact, Bilderberg understands that what we are in fact dealing with is an evolving process leading to an endless escalation of war across the global stage. Asia is one of the areas of operations. Middle East and Magreb is another.

THE ECONOMY

If we were living in the real world, the headline, which best describes the current financial situation would read: The end is near. We are in the middle of an economic financial meltdown. For Bilderberg high-financial managers the problem is how to postpone defaults for as long as possible“ and then to bail out, leaving governments (taxpayers) holding the bag, taking over the obligations of insolvent debtors. With overwhelming cross section of the worlds population against it, the trick is to override democratic politics. As Bilderberg agrees, for this to happen, economic policy must be transferred from elected government bodies to those of financial planners,making the economy entirely dependent on them, with public borrowing creating an enormous risk-free market for interest-bearing loans. This explains what George Ball, the then Under-secretary for Economic Affairs with JFK and Johnson said back in 1968, at a Bilderberg meeting in Canada: Where does one find a legitimate base for the power of corporate management to make decisions that can profoundly affect the economic life of nations to whose governments they have only limited responsibility? This is how financial oligarchy replaces democracy. The role of the European Central Bank, IMF, the World Bank, Bank of International Settlement, the Federal Reserve and other financial oversight agencies has been to make sure that bankers got paid. The problem with today´s system is that the world is run by monetary systems, not by national credit systems. If you are smart, you don´t want a monetary system to run the world. You want sovereign nation-states to have their own credit systems, which is the system of their currency. Above all, the possibility of productive, non-inflationary credit creation by the state, which is firmly stated in the US Constitution, was excluded by Maastrich as a method of determining of economic and financial policy. Now, in Europe, that can´t be done because in Europe, the governments are subject to control by private banking interests, called independent banking systems, which is blocked constitutionally from creating credit for governments. These institutions have the power to regulate government, and to dictate terms to government. Think about this institution within this European edifice called ECB. It tries to function like a European independent central bank, which has no government. There is no government. There is no nation. It´s a group of nations run by a private bank. The supposed independence of the Central Bank is the decisive control mechanism for private financial interests, which historically in Europe has been installed as an authoritative instrument against an economic policy of sovereign governments oriented towards the General Welfare. European banking is a remnant of a feudal society, in which private interests“ as typified by ancient venetian cartels or by the Lombard league which went down in the Dark Age in the 14th century.

CONCLUSION

What we have today is not a liquidity crisis, but an insolvency crisis. The United States is now $14.3 trillion in debt. Plus, the government running up a trillion-dollar deficit for the third straight year, something no country in the history of the world has ever done. There is a confirmed double-dip in housing market with prices plummeting more than during the Great Depression and a fresh roll over in bank stocks, with companies like Bank of America and Citigroup giving up every penny of gains theyve made in the last two years, but it is not only Bank of America and Citi, it is every financial institution in America. From Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase and beyond, the system is imploding: banks, financial markets, bond markets, housing markets. And now, we can add the United States to the list of bankrupt nations. US dollar has lost 12% of its value in one year. And China, for the first time, has become a net seller of US treasury bonds. What it means is that the bond bubble is about to explode and when it does, take a front row seat and enjoy the fireworks. This is once in a lifetime opportunity. The Bilderberg Group is not the end, but the means, to a future One World Company Limited. This organization has grown beyond its secretive beginnings to become a key nod in the decision making of the elite. The ultimate goal of this nightmare future is to transform Earth into a prison planet by bringing about a single globalised marketplace, controlled by One World Company, financially regulated by a World Bank, and populated by a dumbed down population whose life´s needs will be stripped down to materialism and survival“ work, buy, sex, sleep“ all connected to a global computer that monitors our every move. And it is becoming easier because the development of telecommunications technology together with profound advances in present-day knowledge and new methods of behavior engineering to manipulate individual conduct are converting what, in other epochs of history, were only evil intentions, into a disturbing new reality. Each new measure viewed on its own may seem an aberration, but a whole host of changes, as part of an ongoing continuum, constitutes a shift towards total enslavement. And as we watch the world go to hell in a hand basket, we find ourselves at the crossroads. The road we take from here will determine the very future of humanity and whether we will become an electronic global police state or remain free human beings. Remember, it is not up to God to bring us back from the new Dark Age, it is up to us.

An amazing report circulating in the Kremlin today authored by the Federal Security Service (FSB) states that the ever-growing scandal in the United Kingdom related to the phone-hacking and police bribery claims being made against the global media empire of the man Time Magazine in 2007 called “The Last Tycoon” is, instead, due to the Australian-American billionaire Rupert Murdoch planning to publish a new book claiming that the American President, Barack Obama, is a “direct-line” descendent of Jesus Christ.

According to this report, the global media empire controlled by Murdoch has been financed and controlled for over a century by “secretive elements” of the Knights Templar that operated through the Free Church of Scotland after their historic break with the Church of Scotland in 1843.

Murdoch’s paternal grandfather was a minister with the Free Church of Scotland, this report says, and upon his fathers, Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch (1885-1952), immigration from Cruden, Scotland to Victoria, Australia in 1884 the Knights Templar provided the resources upon which the global media empire of The News Corporation currently stands today.

An important part of Murdoch’s global empire as it relates to today’s scandal, this FSB report continues, is a little known publishing company located in Grand Rapids, Michigan called Zondervan that is an international publisher of Christian media founded in 1931 by brothers Peter and Bernard Zondervan who were the nephews of publisher William B. Eerdmans (1880-1966) and acquired by News Corporation in 1988. The importance of the Dutch immigrant Eerdmans moving to the United States in 1902 was, according to this FSB report, his being able to publish for an American audience the works of Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis (1898-1963), most important of them being the Knights Templar “coded”The Chronicles of Narnia.

Important to note about The Chronicles of Narnia is the Knights Templar symbolism contained in the central figure Aslan, otherwise known as the “Great Lion” and the “savior” of mankind, who was modeled after one of their most beloved leaders, Richard the Lionheart. The FSB further states in this report that the Knights Templar “controlled and directed” efforts by Murdoch’s Zondervan and Eerdmans publishing companies encompass some of the greatest Christian writers of the last century, most important of them being the Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century and described by Pope Pius XII as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Though many still believe today that the Knights Templar were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church, the recently discovered Chinon Parchment proves that in 1308 by Pope Clement V secretly absolved the last Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the rest of the leadership of the Knights Templar from charges brought against them by the Medieval Inquisition.

The significance of Pope Clement V’s absolution of the Knights Templar, this report says, lies in his being born in the French region known as Aquitaine which was not only a protectorate of their secretive order, but also the region legend holds the direct descendents of Jesus Christ were, also, protected.

The reason these holy descendents had to be protected, this report continues, lies in their being the offspring of the “union” between Jesus Christ and the “Supreme Goddess Queen” of Ethiopia Mahram Magda, otherwise known to history as Mary Magdalene. Now the greatest problem facing the “offspring” of Jesus Christ and his Ethiopian “Goddess Queen” Mahram/Mary lies in the fact that their skin colour was not white, but black, and which the early founders of the Catholic Church vowed to eradicate and began their war against those forces, including the Knights Templar, loyal to the “Black Madonna.” This war against the “black” descendants of Jesus Christ have been detailed in the book by American researcher Ean Begg titled “The Cult of the Black Virgin” wherein he details Gnostic-Christian underground stream that flowed west with the cult of Mary Magdalene and resurfaced in Catharism at the time of the Crusades, especially with the Knights Templar.To how brutal and ruthless the Roman Catholic Church was in the eradication of the threat the descendants of Jesus Christ posed to them we can read:

While the Roman Catholic Church believed in the 13th century it had destroyed this major threat to their power they couldn’t have been more mistaken, and according to this FSB report the “final chapter” in this saga is soon to be written.

The second book to this series, this FSB report says, is the one most feared by the Western powers and has ignited the current firestorm against Murdoch and is titled “Barack Obama, The Christ Child Among Us.”

According to the FSB, this astonishing book claims that that Obama is a direct descendant of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene who since birth has been protected by the Knights Templar and whose “mission” is to forge a world-wide peace among all mankind, but not before first destroying the “Old World Order” (like Samson “Man of the Sun” destroying the pillars of the temple) that has brought our planet to the brink of destruction.

Should this knowledge about Obama be understood by the masses, the FSB reports, the stability of the United States “could not be assured” as tens of millions of Americans would immediately revolt against him believing him to be the feared “Anti-Christ” prophesied to come in the last days of our Earth.

Most interesting to note in all of these events is that it does appear likely that Obama is of a mysterious origin as all of his past has been concealed leading many to believe he isn’t even an American citizen. And, with this new information one must now wonder if he is even a true citizen of this world.

Lawsuit seeks to invalidate Monsanto’s GMO patents

“A new invention to poison people … is not a patentable invention.”Lowell v. Lewis, 1817

A landmark lawsuit filed on March 29 in US federal court seeks to invalidate Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seeds and to prohibit the company from suing those whose crops become genetically contaminated.

The Public Patent Foundation filed suit on behalf of 270,000 people from sixty organic and sustainable businesses and trade associations, including thousands of certified-organic farmers. In Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, et al. v. Monsanto, et al. (U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, Case No. 11 CIV 2163), PUBPAT details the invalidity of any patent that poisons people and the environment, and that is not useful to society, two hallmarks of US patent law.

“As Justice Story wrote in 1817, to be patentable, an invention must not be ‘injurious to the well being, good policy, or sound morals of society,’” notes the complaint in its opening paragraphs, citing Lowell v. Lewis.

Plaintiffs condemn Monsanto for prohibiting independent research on its transgenic seeds and for its successful lobby efforts to ban GM food labeling. Many raise the specter of allergic reaction to GM foods, proof of which is hidden by lack of labeling.The suit also confronts the propaganda that transgenic seeds improve yield and reduce pesticide use, citing reports on failure to yield and increased pesticide use. The complaint mentions a 2010 lawsuit by West Virginia after several studies contradicted yield results claimed in Monsanto’s ads. And, it notes the growth in glyphosate-resistant superweeds.

“Thus, since the harm of transgenic seed is known, and the promises of transgenic seed’s benefits are false, transgenic seed is not useful for society.” This means, should the court agree, that all transgenic seeds fail the test of patent law. The suit has the potential to reverse patent approval on all biotech seeds, impacting BASF, Bayer, DuPont, Dow, and Syngenta, and others. Genetic contamination of natural plants occurs where GM seeds are grown, no matter who developed them. Ingesting food which has had its DNA mucked with is dangerous, regardless of who does the mucking.

What makes Monsanto different is its US seed monopoly. Well documented by market authorities, Plaintiffs point out that, “Over 85-90% of all soybeans, corn, cotton, sugar beets and canola grown in the U.S. contains Monsanto’s patented genes.” Through its monopoly, Monsanto has spiked the cost of seeds. In the past decade, corn seed prices increased 135% and soybean prices 108%, the suit asserts. As recently as 1997, soybean farmers spent only 4-8% of their income on seeds, “while in 2009, farmers who planted transgenic soybeans spent 16.4 percent of their income on seeds.”

Monsanto has also used its dominant position to limit competition from other herbicide producers, as well, the suit alleges.

Listing 23 US patents by Monsanto, Plaintiffs also accuse the firm of “double patenting” thus strengthening its monopoly over the entire field of transgenic seeds:

“Although the United States patent system allows improvements on existing inventions, it does not permit a party to extend its monopoly over a field of invention by receiving a patent that expires later than and is not patentably distinct from a patent it already owns…. “Monsanto began applying for patents on glyphosate tolerance in the mid 1980s. Its first patents on the trait were granted in 1990 and are now expired. After pursuing its earliest patents on glyphosate resistance, Monsanto continued to seek and receive patents on Roundup Ready technology for over two decades…. “In acquiring the transgenic seed patents, Monsanto unjustly extended its period of patent exclusivity by duplicating its ownership of a field of invention already covered by other Monsanto patents.” The suit then concludes, “Monsanto’s transgenic seed patents are thus invalid for violating the prohibition against double patenting.”

Genetic Contamination

Here’s the mother of all arguments, which makes the most sense to the lay public. How dare Monsanto sue farmers damaged by genetic contamination of their crops? That’s like a pugilist suing for damage to his hand after he punches an unwilling victim. “Plaintiffs cannot be held to have infringed any Monsanto transgenic seed patent if Plaintiffs become contaminated by Monsanto’s transgenic seed through no intentional act of their own.”

Monsanto admits that its product contaminates natural crops. That must be why it recently altered its Technology Stewardship Agreement to transfer liability for its products to the farmers who buy them.

The suit logically asserts that genetic contamination amounts to trespass on the property of those who do not want GE seeds, causing them substantial economic harm.

We saw that when Bayer’s transgenic seeds contaminated a third of the US rice supply, causing the European Union to close its market to US rice. Bayer has faced 6,000 lawsuits due to that contamination and market closure. On top of lawsuits already lost or settled, last month, Bayer lost a $137 million lawsuit by Riceland Foods. The new suit notes that, “The worldwide total economic loss due to the [2006 GM rice] contamination event was estimated at $741 million to $1.285 billion.”

Impact on the Biotech Food Industry

The suit argues that because “contamination is reasonably foreseeable,” Monsanto thus loses its patent rights whenever it sells its GM seeds. This wouldn’t stop it from selling the seed, but it would allow farmers to save seeds from transgenic crops. No company can stay in business without repeat customers, especially ones that spend millions on research and development. And, because transgenic contamination is not limited to Monsanto’s seeds, all biotech seed companies would likewise face dissolution of their intellectual property rights.

Other harm from biotechnology does not stop with Monsanto’s seeds or chemicals, either. To protect the world from the biotech food industry, which extends to animals, patenting life itself should be banned. This lawsuit might take us closer to a return of that legal standard, prior to the 2001 High Court decision in J.E.M. Ag Supply v. Pioneer Hi-Bred

The court disagreed, and thus allowed patents on sexually reproducing life forms, which extends to animals. Of note, the decision was written by ethically-challenged Clarence Thomas, a former Monsanto attorney. Thomas also refused to recuse himself from a 2010 case involving Monsanto. (Geertson Seed v Monsanto involved contamination of natural alfalfa.)

Among the plaintiffs in the PUBPAT suit is Navdanya International, headed by Dr. Vandana Shiva who has long fought biopiracy. Genetic patents “have unleashed an epidemic of the piracy of nature’s creativity and millennia of indigenous innovation,” Shiva wrote at Navdanya.

The new lawsuit couldn’t come a moment too soon, given the USDA’s recent decision to allow rice modified with human genes by Ventria Bioscience. Such approval begs the question: At what point is the line into cannibalism crossed? Biotech and pharmaceutical companies have produced several hundred “pharma crops” – food that contains vaccines against a variety of diseases. The FDA and USDA would have us ignore that this scheme fails to consider appropriate dosage specific to a person’s age, weight and medical condition, the very foundation of pharmaceutical science.

The biotech industry is out of control, and poses a significant danger to humans and the environment. PUBPAT’s lawsuit marks a significant step toward restoring a safe, sane and consensual food supply.

Genetic Engineering: Scientists warn of link between dangerous new pathogen and Monsanto’s Roundup

by Rady Ananda

Urges USDA to rescind approval of genetically engineered alfalfa: “In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency.”

A plant pathologist experienced in protecting against biological warfare recently warned the USDA of a new, self-replicating, micro-fungal virus-sized organism which may be causing spontaneous abortions in livestock, sudden death syndrome in Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soy, and wilt in Monsanto’s RR corn.

Dr. Don M. Huber, who coordinates the Emergent Diseases and Pathogens committee of the American Phytopathological Society, as part of the USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System, warned Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that this pathogen threatens the US food and feed supply and can lead to the collapse of the US corn and soy export markets. Likewise, deregulation of GE alfalfa “could be a calamity,” he noted in his letter (reproduced in full below).

On January 27, Vilsack gave blanket approval to all genetically modified alfalfa. Following orders from President Obama, he also removed buffer zone requirements. This is seen as a deliberate move to contaminate natural crops and destroy the organic meat and dairy industry which relies on GM-free alfalfa. Such genetic contamination will give the biotech industry complete control over the nation’s fourth largest crop. It will also ease the transition to using GE-alfalfa as a biofuel.

“My letter to Secretary Vilsack was a request to allocate necessary resources to understand potential nutrient-disease interactions before making (in my opinion) an essentially irreversible decision on deregulation of RR alfalfa,” Huber told Food Freedom in an email.

But, he cautions:

“Although the organism has been associated with infertility and spontaneous abortions in animals, associations are not always evidence of cause in all cases and do not indicate what the predisposing conditions might be. These need to be established through thorough investigation which requires a commitment of resources.

“I hope that the Secretary will make such a commitment because many growers/producers are experiencing severe increases in disease of both crops and animals that are threatening their economic viability.”

On Feb. 16, Paul Tukey of SafeLawn telephoned Dr. Huber who told him, “I believe we’ve reached the tipping point toward a potential disaster with the safety of our food supply. The abuse, or call it over use if you will, of Roundup, is having profoundly bad consequences in the soil. We’ve seen that for years. The appearance of this new pathogen may be a signal that we’ve gone too far.”

Tukey also conveyed that while Huber admits that much further study is needed to definitively confirm the link between Round-Up and the pathogen, “In the meantime, he said, it’s grossly irresponsible of the government to allow Roundup Ready alfalfa, which would bring the widespread spraying of Roundup to millions of more acres and introduce far more Roundup into the food supply.”

Huber, who has been studying plant pathogens for over 50 years and glyphosate for over 20 years, has noticed an increase in pathogens associated with the herbicide. In an interview with the Organic and Non-GMO Report last May, he discussed his team’s conclusions that glyphosate can, “significantly increase the severity of various plant diseases, impair plant defense to pathogens and diseases, and immobilize soil and plant nutrients rendering them unavailable for plant use.”

(Image: Sudden Death Syndrome in soy where the right field was sprayed the previous year with glyphosate. Iowa, 2010. Photo by Don Huber)

This is because “glyphosate stimulates the growth of fungi and enhances the virulence of pathogens.” In the last 15-18 years, the number of plant pathogens has increased, he told the Non-GMO Report. “There are more than 40 diseases reported with use of glyphosate, and that number keeps growing as people recognize the association (between glyphosate and disease).”

In his undated letter to the USDA, Huber highlighted “the escalating frequency of infertility and spontaneous abortions over the past few years in US cattle, dairy, swine, and horse operations.” He reported that spontaneous abortions occurred in nearly half the cattle where high concentrations of the pathogen were found in their feed. Huber notes that the wheat “likely had been under weed management using glyphosate.”

“In Argentina and Paraguay, doctors and residents living in GM soy producing areas have reported serious health effects from glyphosate spraying, including high rates of birth defects as well as infertility, stillbirths, miscarriages, and cancers. Scientific studies collected in the new report confirm links between exposure to glyphosate and premature births, miscarriages, cancer, and damage to DNA and reproductive organ cells.”

One of the researchers, Andrés Carrasco, told GM Watch, “The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy.”

When trying to present these findings to the public in August of last year, Dr. Carrasco and the audience were attacked by 100 thugs who beat them and their cars with clubs, leaving one person paralyzed, Amnesty International reported. Local police and a wealthy GM rice grower were implicated in that attack.

In a 2009 study, researchers linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto’s GM maize, based on Monsanto’s trial data. As we reported last year, Gilles-Eric Séralini, et al., concluded that the raw data from all three GMO studies reveal that novel pesticide residues will be present in food and feed and may pose grave health risks to those consuming them.

In a 2005 paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives, Sophie Richard, et al. compared the toxicity of Roundup with that of just glyphosate, its active ingredient. They found Roundup to be more toxic, owing to its adjuvants. They also found that endocrine disruption increased over time so that one-tenth the amount prescribed for agriculture caused cell deformation. Citing other research, they also reported that Roundup adjuvants bond with DNA.

Tom Laskawy at Grist estimated that in 2008, nearly 200 million pounds of glyphosate were poured onto US soils. But, he notes that “exact figures are a closely guarded secret thanks to the USDA’s refusal to update its pesticide use database after 2007.” This figure more than doubles what the EPA estimates was used in 2000.